American Chestnut in Warspur, Virginia with a dead, broken, main trunk and live small sprouts. The non-hybrid sprouts will soon succumb to the blight, which is still in the environment.

The American Chestnut tree has mythic stature in tree lore. Today the old giants of people’s memories are long gone from the landscape, wiped out by an Asian blight a hundred years ago. And even though they still loom large in the history and culture of Appalachia, new research suggests, their mythic proportions are likely, just that. Robbie Harris reports.